July 6, 20178 yr Anyone have top 10 sales for this weeks episodes? Also have we any more DLT episodes left? I think DLT presented up to 1987. If you see anyone on the chart rundown and they haven't been shown,their TOTP clips are normally on youtube. Cyndi Lauper performing Girls Just Wanna Have Fun is certainly worth watching.
July 7, 20178 yr Author It’s the Peel / Jensen hosting team again looking very natty in their matching jackets. I assume somebody thought so anyway. Matt Bianco gets things going. He looks rather older than most acts. Oh dear, it’s Van Halen. It gets worse. Alexei Sayle’s comedy record is just as bad as most comedy records. Thankfully comics don’t feel the same obligation to record this sort of rubbish these days. Some people called Break Machine next. They should have broken whatever machine it was recorded on. This is another episode that isn’t going well. A cheeky reference to Relax precedes the first bit of the chart. England had just lost to France i the European Championships. Hence the reference in this live edition. Time for a bit of Wang Chung. The best song of the night so far. Back to Hitsville for the next bit of the chart. All the way up to Slade at number ten - still having hits ten years after their heyday. The caber tosser in the video became the silent Big Ron in Eastenders. The top nine countdown ends with a new number one. We first saw Nena last year in Peelie’s European round-up and now here she is with the English version of her mega-hit. A weak joke leads into Julia and Company to finish things off.
July 8, 20178 yr Why wasn't the Richard Skinner Mike smith episode shown? The one with Madonna's debut? Edited July 8, 20178 yr by ϑЃεβϘ
July 8, 20178 yr Mike Smith refused permission for any of his episodes to be shown and as he's now dead,his estate have asked that his wishes are still kept. I don't quite know why the presenters have any say in the matter as surely the BBC can show what they like but obviously they can't.
July 8, 20178 yr Author Mike Smith refused permission for any of his episodes to be shown and as he's now dead,his estate have asked that his wishes are still kept. I don't quite know why the presenters have any say in the matter as surely the BBC can show what they like but obviously they can't. The BBC could show the Mike Smith episodes if they wished. However, they have chosen to respect his decision not to agree to them being shown.
July 9, 20178 yr When is Mikes final appearance? March 1988. Still 59 more BBC4 episodes to be skipped! Edited July 9, 20178 yr by commonsense
July 12, 20178 yr Sales estimates for the last show 1- 99 RED BALLONS- Nena (84,000) 2- RELAX- Frankie Goes To Hollywood (70,000) 3- JOANNA/ TONIGHT- Kool & The Gang (65,000) 4- WOULDN’T IT BE GOOD- Nik Kershaw (63,000) 5- DOCTOR DOCTOR- Thompson Twins (62,000) 6- SOMEBODY’S WATCHING ME- Rockwell (46,000) 7- RADIO GAGA- Queen (40,000) 8- AN INNOCENT MAN- Billy Joel (38,000) 9- MY EVER CHANGIN MOODS- Style Council (35,000) 10- RUN RUNAWAY- Slade (33,000)
July 12, 20178 yr The men Gezza fantastic top 10, Kool & the Gang just got hit after hit in this era! Great no1 with Nena, Queen, Rik Kershaw, Rockwell & Frankie the classics most remembered! Slade also jumping on the success they had in December 1983!
July 20, 20178 yr Author We’re into the latter part of March now and our hosts are Peter Powell and Janice Long. Long is sporting a very 80s haircut. Powell has gone for the double denim look. Earlier in the evening Colin Baker starred in his first full episode as The Doctor. Depeche Mode get us off to a great start. The great start didn’t last long. It’s the Weather Girls. Anyone remember this Shakin’ Stevens song? Culture Club up next. Not a great song by any means but a huge improvement on the last two songs we’ve had to endure. Bananarama have been sliced. The first bit of the chart. Now it’s UB40’s turn to do a long-forgotten song. Chart - the next bit. Another chance to hear Sade’s sultry tones. They’ve even spelt her name correctly in the chart this time. Yes, it’s the Christmas version - no l. It’s the top eight rundown and Lionel Richie is number one. Even by his standards this is excruciatingly boring. We end with Phil Fearon and Galaxy. Overall, a pretty poor show tonight. Maybe tomorrow will be better.
July 22, 20178 yr Been reading up on the band Madness who have been one of the biggest bands throughout the last 5 years of classic totp replays and as we move into mid 1984 they're top 10 dominance is beginning to wane so it led me to think why did artists back then seem to release an album nearly every year?
July 22, 20178 yr I think it was a record company thing. They would sign a group/singer up for a certain number of albums and get them to record them and put them out as quickly as possible. OMD,Ultravox and Depeche Mode all released albums every year during the first half of the 80s.
July 23, 20178 yr Haven't seen OMD much since around 1982 on memory! Only artists that do that nowadays are pop groups and singers like olly Murs and Little Mix!
July 23, 20178 yr Author I suspect tours at the time would have been a lot shorter with relatively few (if any) dates outside the UK. Eastern Europe was under communism and, therefore, out of bounds. There will still have been a lot of bureaucracy involved even in travelling within the EU as every item of equipment had to be listed in the relevant documentation. Now touring Europe (particularly within the EU) is easy with very little bureaucracy to worry about. The shorter tours will have meant bands had more time to write and record the next album.
July 24, 20178 yr Plus an album every year or two was the norm anyway right until Thriller changed everything and they became Future Greatest Hits albums as they mined them for singles. If albums weren't out, invariably new singles were put out to plug the gap. Taking 5 years out was a risk unless you were a superstar - John Lennon's 5-years out seemed an eternity away, but it's not that unusual so much now. OMD, Depeche and Madness have recent or new albums out in 2017 as well...hooray!
July 27, 20178 yr I'd forgotten until last night that there's no TOTP this week. The next edition is next Thursday (3 August).
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